🚀 go-pugleaf

coatta@cs.ubc.ca (Terry Coatta) writes:
> > Then how on earth can you take any "corrective" actions?  Who are you
> > going to apply them to?
> 
> To anyone who meets the criteria established in the research regarding
> the issue at hand.  I am curious that you have used the term
> ``corrective action'' because that implies that one must wait until a
> right has been violated in order for that right to exist.  If so, then
> there is yet another area of contention between us. Certain forms of
> rights violation are not amenable to ``corrective action''.  What is
> the ``corrective action'' for having been murdered? Given that the
> sciences provide us with predictive mechanisms (albeit probabilistic),
> it is legitimate to seek to prevent violation of rights.  If I have
> solid emperical evidence that action X yields results Y and Z, and
> Y and Z involve violation of people's rights, then seeking to
> modify X is justified (modulo priorities of the various rights
> involved of course).

I do not believe that "corrective actions" should ever be taken.  I 
believe that when rights are violated, people should be *punished* (firmly).
Preemptive corrective action, in the form of social tuning, is something
that you have supported in your arguments, and you are obviously directly
supporting it here.  So not only are you ready to propose action when
causality is vague and distributed, you are willing to propose action even
when a causal relationship has not yet taken place (but you have reason to
think it will).  This is quite shocking.  It is obvious that actions,
justified in this manner, give the justifiers unlimited power to abuse.

If corrective actions are taken *before* people actually violate human
rights, then interference has certainly occurred.  Further, the correcting
agents have said, in effect, "I know where this is leading and I'm going to
stop it".  This type of position is fine for parents to take, but it is
highly inappropriate when applied to other adults.  Once again, it looks
like you took Asimov's Foundation far too seriously.

Would I be correct in guessing that you don't see much point in punishment
because, "Once the abuse has occurred reprisals can change nothing"?

> > I don't think so.  Complexity can be handled one case at a time (one
> > violation of human rights at a time).  It may take more effort, but it
> > can be done in parallel, and the final result will be more
> > case-specific.
> 
> This is erroneous.  Sicence is chock full of examples of inherent
> complexity in which various factors cannot be treated orthogonally
> (chaos theory being, I suppose, and extreme example).

Maybe science is, but what about civil law?  

> > And just how does science decide when a causal relationship has been a
> > harmful one, and when it hasn't?
> 
> I did not express myself well when I wrote about this earlier.  Indeed
> science cannot tell us when harm has occurred.  It can only tell us
> (and probabilistically so) how actions and results are related to
> one another.

And so *who* is deciding when a causal relationship, tenuous or otherwise,
is harmful?

> > Now clearly most of us would agree with the interpretation of a
> > scientist who says that a gun shot produced harm, but would we all
> > agree with the interpretations made by social scientists?  I think
> > not.
> 
> Now it seems you are making an argument which I myself have been
> trying to present... namely that science CANNOT tell us which
> rights are important and which are not because that entails a
> subjective interpretation of what is harmful.

It seems to me that, if you have been making this argument, you have done 
so in a *very* subtle way.  Regardless of that, who makes the subjective
interpretation of what is harmful?

> Indeed most of us would agree that a gunshot wound was harmful.
> However, I have yet to find many people who believe that an
> increased crime rate is good for them.  Since this is one of
> the factors with which social scientists concern themselves, I
> see little to differentiate between the physicist and the
> criminologist in this respect.

Granted, in terms of them both being people who measure observable facts.
But the big question is, while a gunshot can readily be attributed to
one person, how do you attribute a rising crime-rate?  And who decides
how to attribute it?

> > This is the type of argument that we are seeing more often these days.
> > Would you agree with it?  Would you support some sort of Affirmative
> > Action program, based on discrimination, to correct the "harm"?
> 
> Its the sort of argument I would expect from some one with little
> training in scientific procedure -- the sort of thing produced
> by some special interest group with little interest in the truth
> and a great deal of interest in their particular agenda.  A such
> it doesn't appear to me to have much to do with the issue we have
> been talking about.  If we want a ``real'' example to discuss it means
> we're going to have to spend some time delving through research,
> analzying statistics, criticizing experimental producedure, and all of
> those other tasks that are involved in serious research anywhere.
> 
> So, to answer your second question, an argument such as the one
> you have put forward is about as scientific as a typical TV show
> on the Bermuda Triangle and would perhaps be suitable motivation
> for policy development in the Twilight Zone.

[You make it sound here like I support the argument that I provided
as an example of what *others* support - please be more careful.]

I think that this type of argument, "women feeling intimidated in male
dominated occupation justifies Affirmative Action", is entirely in line 
with your previous positions.  How is "intimidated by aggressive males" any
different from "threatened by crime-rate"?  Since you heartily decry the
argument I provided as an example, could you sketch out an example of an
argument that you *would* support - one where causality is not
straight-forward.

> > I believe you are stating here that property rights have little or no
> > importance (except where property adds to personal security).  Is this
> > correct?
> 
> I would not say ``little or no importance''.  I would say of less
> importance than personal security, and freedom of expression for
> example.  In addition, that property rights can frequently be
> analyzed in terms of their relationship to other rights (i.e.
> certain property rights are implied by the right to personal
> security).

I have argued that property rights are second only to personal security in
order of importance to most people.  I gather that you are saying that your
order is not the same.  But as I argued some time ago, the question is not
how people order their own individually chosen set of rights, the question
is, are you willing to respect my rights, in whatever order I have put them?
Do you think you know of an ordering that everyone's rights should take? 
How willing are you to respect the right to property that I have given such
personal importance to?

Getting back to the old daycare example, when you force the owners of a
company to spend money (their property) on a daycare, you have violated their
highly important property rights in deference to some vaguely defined
collective right (or something - hell, I don't understand it).  What rights
are we balancing here, the right to property against the right for people
with children to have daycare in whatever corporate location they require?

> > Then we *do* disagree on the basic rights required for democracy.
> 
> Not to the extent you seem to suggest.  I think that some of the
> rights which you listed are, in fact subsumed by others (e.g.
> the right to personal security implies, at least to me, freedom
> of movement).  Additionally, I do not believe that these rights
> are absolute, but only make sense in terms of realtive priorities,
> for example, I find it unlikely that you believe freedom of
> movement gives you the right to travel through my living room
> whevever the fancy strikes you.

That is right.  Because it is *your property*.  The only thing that
would be worse would be to harm you.

> > But the causal links identified are nowhere near as solid as those in
> > demonstrated physical harm, and social scientists often have a clear
> > political bias that may warp their analysis and their interpretation.
> > Further, the existence of a causal link does not automatically justify
> > action.
> 
> All quite true.  But this hardly constitutes a proof that there is not
> now, nor will ever be, causal links identified by social scientists
> which are solidly demonstrated, scientifically sound, and do justify
> action.

Causal links only justify action if they have been interpreted as harmful.
And who is making that decision?

> And yet, your position that this sort of ``harm'' can never be the
> basis for rights requires just such a proof.

No it doesn't.  You have done it again.  You have slipped in a translation
from causality to harm.

All my position rests on is that, regardless of the precision with which
causal links are identified, the decisions of whether the links indicate harm
or not can be questionable.  They are certainly questionable when we are
dealing with "community needs" and causal relationships that do not involve
direct injury.

> > If my assessment is wrong, why have so many social programs over the
> > last quarter century, guided by the experts you mention, been such
> > dismal failures?
> 
> My personal bias is that our politicians have, in general, a woeful
> lack of background on scientific procedure, etc.  Interpretation of
> research in the social sciences requires a fairly solid background
> in statistics, a background which I think many social scientists
> lack.  Consequently, policy has not been developed on a sound rational
> basis, but on an intuitive one (perhaps affected by whatever
> research happened to be topical).

Well that's the way it is always going to go.  I think you are implying 
here, and I'll state it boldly, that the direction of social policy has been
decided in an emotive manner by special interest groups who demand that we
all follow the politically correct thinking of the day.  And just who else do
you think will get involved in the process of social tuning?  Don't forget
that these people have big gains to be made by acting in this manner.  Do you
really think that the average citizen, who just wants to be left alone, could
care less about some vaguely defined causal relationship that, if controlled,
*might* improve their life just a touch?  No - that citizen is out doing big,
bold things (in the context of their own life) that will more readily and
directly produce results *for them*.  So you are left with the whiners.

Isn't that really the shape of modern politics?  Special interest groups
demanding more and more social tuning, and the more out-spoken small "c"
conservative types (regular people) occasionally saying, "Please stop.  
No more.  I can't afford it."

> I readily admit that there is a good deal of bad research in the
> social sciences.  This does not invalidate the field any more than
> ``cold fusion'' invalidated physics as a legitimate area of study.
> If research of any variety is going to be used in policy development,
> then we need to understand that training in political science, or
> in management techniques is probably not adequate preparation for
> policy makers.  We need people with a solid understanding of the
> subject matter and good critical thinking skills.

No, what we need is fewer "experts", more grassroots decision-making.
We need totally decentralized government.

> > Here is your process in detail:
> > 1. Person feels upset because there is no daycare.
> > 2. Person gets ulcers from feeling upset - these are seen in X-rays.
> > 3. Ulcers are attributed to lack of daycare.
> > 4. Many people get ulcers for same reason.
> > 5. Company is forced to build daycare.
> 
> What you meant to say, I realize, was: ``Here is a parody of your
> process''.  I have ommitted the ``in detail'' because it should be
> self-evident that very few actual details have been provided.

So let's see your version of the process.

> In assessing that harm is done I think it is important to demonstrate
> a certain degree of inevitability in the causal links.  In the above
> such a condition is violated in steps 1 and 2.  Unless lack of
> daycare is somehow genetically linked to becoming upset to the degree
> that one gets ulcers, the above argument is lacking in a solidly
> demonstrated causal link.

Let's say that there is some strange genetic quirk in people, and that lack
of daycare is somehow genetically linked to getting ulcers (which I meant to
imply by 4).  In other words, there *is* inevitability in the causal links.
Would you then accept this process?

> Yeah, sure, I really want to live in a society with roving bands
> of people taking any of my posessions that they want.  And I've
> spent days talking about it with you so I can convince you that
> its a good idea too.

So hammer out how important you think property rights truly are.  In fact,
let's get down to brass tacks here:  How important do you think ownership
of money is?  That is what we are really talking about.
  
> Its always nice to know that your opposition gives you credit for
> having at least half a brain.
> 
> `What I lack in intelligence, I more than compensate for with stupidity'

Which half are we talking about here?   :-)

Ken Buckland                     Freedom.
kenb@ee.ubc.ca